Coming Unstuck
4/6/2007 - Notes on New Dance
Overall structure: constant movement. We have changing places, different pathways, different kinds of repeated movement. Dancers represent different streams of the water, currents channeling different energies within close proximity. I conceive of this as a day-in-the-life piece, one that starts and ends in the same place/ position. I don't think the dancers travel away from the wall. Like water down a waterfall, the streams pass down similar terrain. The traces repeat. The dancers use repetition to show the renewal of the water. They pass by, and return. This resonates in my sense of my own life, the traces of habitual patterns that cling, the return to the same paths of support or frustration. I seem to travel long-term cycles, over periods of years, with day-to-day variations.
Possible titles:
Now, Again
Last Week
Sometimes Banquet
5/30/07 - Wall Dance Musings
I am thinking that the trio against the wall are like travelers on a journey. Specifically, they reference my own travels in Asia with Jen and Alex. During these trips, our group clung together, mostly inseparable. We had brief times when we would split, for an hour or an afternoon, then we came together again. There were constant minor
irritations: everyone got in everyone else's way. There were times when I felt like a petulant child, a bratty little brother. We explored, but they were well-worn paths. There was a great deal of
repetition: new city, same tasks. We visited similar cultural artifacts everywhere: the ancient, spiritual, monumental. There were brief patches of ecstasy, a lot of genuine beauty and filth. I felt anxious about leaving home for the first half of each trip; anxious about returning during the second half. We came back changed, but the same. Motion was almost non-stop.
The wall represents support. We depended on strangers who spoke English, on public transportation, on restaurant food, on the cleaning staff, on weather, on guides, on the thousand miscellaneous influences which we could not control on the road. We were at the mercy of the community, helpless, bumpkins.
6/26/07
My primary metaphor is that long-distance travel is like a waterfall. It is non-stop! a kind of clambering, creeping, freezing, frenzied torrent of movement. It is always a scramble to find a place to stay, a place to get out of the sun, or to get to the next great natural wonder, the next monumental work of art before the site closes. There’s always another mountain to climb, another oasis to stumble upon, and it’s always urgent because you may never be here again. That’s what makes it so wonderful and so exhausting. It’s so dense. There are so many highs and lows, bumpy rides, things to hunt
for: vegetarian fare, exhibits, soap…. You and your companions are locked in a kind of restless agitation, water spurting, gurgling, spraying, rocking you, lifting you up, setting you down, occasionally breaking you down.
I see this piece in sections. The dancers start at the beginning of the trip, the interminable wait at airports, bus stations, or some other staging area. The trip begins, signified by the vibrations shooting up from the floor of the train, passing from passenger to passenger. Not all are affected the same way. In this instance, April, like me, gets caught up in the excitement. She goes spastic, then gets tired out.
The next section takes place in the back of a bus on one of those ceaselessly jagged dirt roads. The dancers jiggle and jostle, then get tossed about.
This resolves at the destination. There is a kind of numbness when your feet hit the ground again. I believe that when you arrive at a site after a difficult journey, it makes the site even more absorbing. This is depicted here by Alex. He slides down the wall in a kind of ecstasy, condensing, in my mind, like mist to the cliff border of the waterfall.
Now, the dancers board a night bus. They spring awake, as people will, in an unfamiliar bed. But, on a night bus, not only is the bed unfamiliar, the terrain is constantly changing. The disorientation is increased. The dancers reach for one another, their familiar bodies the only anchor in their voyage.
The resolution of this shows our battle with circumstances on the road. Away from home, we are dependent on a million factors that we can’t control. There is traffic, construction that changes the territory we thought we were visiting, the food offered at the restaurant even if you’re dead tired of vegetables in white sauce, train timetables, etc. In this case, Jennifer struggles against the current to grasp something she can’t have. For me, in China, that thing was an extra day in the Wolong Nature Reserve. But it could be anything. While her two companions support her, she is fighting against the stream.
Finally, the dancers perform repetitions of an athletic sequence.
This is the mundane side of travel: endless rush and repetition. In every new town, the tasks are the same: find housing, find food, find transport, see the site, secure transportation to the next town. The water falls and splashes back again and again.
7/9/07
I’m starting to see the progression of this dance differently. The movers start at the beginning of the trip, waiting, then become more energized as they get underway. They take on the frenetic energy of
the first part of a trip during the bus bumps: the thrill, the fear.
Alex and Jenn share a discovery together while April looks away during the mist section. Then, the energy becomes less frantic, but the shifts are still extreme. They are bent in half by their experiences during the night bus section. This is the halfway point. Already, a splintering is hinted at. They reunite for a final push, supporting each other, gathering their strength. Now, during the waterfall section, the end of the trip, they are even more frantic, driving themselves to do more before they go back home,
plunging into new experiences. But the outside world creeps in.
They will be divided. They reform to meet the structure of their old lives. They part.
10/10/07
I have started to realize this dance better. It is not about a physical journey. It is about that period of transition between denying that your life is changing and accepting that it has in fact changed in spite of your best efforts. The trio embodies a close group of friends that are splintering. They cling to each other, clutch at the wall for support, but they fall. The dancers shiver like droplets splashing down the face of a cliff. For me, this relates to my unborn baby (Maya Rose Shute, born 10/29/07). I have great fear of the changes s/he will bring. The weight of this ponderous unknown bears down on me and makes me doubt. I don't want to change, but I know I have to. I am trying to remain stuck. I am coming unstuck.
